Keynote presentation from Communitech's own Steve Currie. Covering how Communitech is changing Waterloo-Kitchener, what Connecticut can do to emulate it, and how ScaleUps can face- and conquer, their uniquer challenges.
3. We help tech companies
start, grow and succeed
Mission-driven since day one.
4. Communitech helps tech companies
start, grow and succeed
MISSION
PLACE ECOSYSTEM PROGRAMS
Founded by a handful of entrepreneurs in 1997, it has
grown into a movement of more than 1,100
companies determined to scale their businesses and
grow the economies of Waterloo Region and Canada.
A MOVEMENT
10. 2009 |Downtown Kitchener
• Low dollar, low productivity
• Globalization pushing
manufacturing jobs overseas
• Industrial community
struggles to reinvent itself
11. 2009 | Waterloo Region tech sector
• RIM (Bberry) = the tech
sector
• Little startup activity
• Waterloo looked to
Raleigh-Durham and
Pittsburgh as models
• No big bets on the tech
industry
12. 2009 | We set big goals
Not afraid to roll-up
our sleeves
A long heritage of people that
come together for the well-being
of the community.
Support 100 new companies
Help them generate 2,000 new jobs
Attract $100M in new investment capital
Bring 3 new multi-national companies to Ontario
13. Today | Big goals generated bigger results
Not afraid to roll-up
our sleeves
A long heritage of people that
come together for the well-being
of the community.
Support 100 2,562+ new companies
Help them generate 2,000 13,981 new jobs
Attract $100M $1B in new investment capital
Bring 3 19 new multi-national companies to
Ontario
14. Now….
Highest density of startups outside of
Silicon Valley
Highest density of Corporate
Innovation labs in the world
16. A Place| The Communitech Hub
• A grand experiment
• Not an incubator or an accelerator,
but a new model
• Clubhouse where large and small
companies collide and create value
• An innovation destination
• A world-leading entrepreneurial
ecosystem
35. The odds are stacked against Scale-Ups
Ontario’s hockey feeder system:
30,000 kids grow up playing hockey
48 are drafted by an NHL team
39 sign contracts
32 of those actually play in the NHL
15 play more than 1 season
6 play the 400 games to qualify for the
NHL Player Pension
This is not easy. It’s as tough as having a career in the NHL.
Selling the Dream: How Hockey Parents and Their Kids Are Paying the Price for Our National
Obsessionhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/emily-cornelius/how-hard-is-it-to-make-it_b_5803634.html
To have a career in the NHL:
0.16% get drafted and
0.02% make a career out of it
36. The odds are stacked against Scale-Ups
9,500
200
For the 590,000 businesses that start each year
in the US (includes all industries), the Kauffman
work show us:
• 54,280 reach $1m in sales in 6 years (9.2%)
• 9,500 reach $5m in sales in 6 years (1.6%)
• 200 reach $100m in sales in 6 years (0.03%)
On average, for a company that makes it to
$50m in sales, it takes 9 years Number of US Companies that reach $100 million in revenue is stable over 20 years Kauffman Report
http://www.kauffman.org/newsroom/2013/06/number-of-us-companies-that-reach-100million-in-annual-
revenues-remarkably-stable-over-past-20-years-according-to-kauffman-paper
It’s just as hard for companies.
54,280
590,000
54,280
2009,500
37. The US creates 20 TECH
companies per year that
reach $100m in sales
41. The Scale Up Challenges
Challenges
Talent
Leadership
Access to
Growth
Capital
Revenue
Peers/
Global
Mentors
Reality:
• Must be customized to
each company
• Rate of growth
• Market opportunity
• Product maturity
• Growth Funding
available
• Talent
• Has to be Just-in-Time
42. The Scale Up Challenges
Challenges
Talent
Leadership
Access to
Growth
Capital
Revenue
Peers/
Global
Mentors
Leadership:
• Tap into business
leadership programs:
UCONN/Yale/Others –
focus on scaling
• leadership for scaling a
business, building a
corporate culture,
organization design for
growth, talent
management and
growth metrics
• transfer pricing, global
operations, IP and
risk/crisis management
43. The Scale Up Challenges
Challenges
Talent
Leadership
Access to
Growth
Capital
Revenue
Peers/
Global
Mentors
Peers/Global Mentors:
• One-on-one time with
Fortune 100 execs and
functional experts
• A regional peer group
of other CEOs and
founders, access to
Valley/NYC execs,
international coaches
• alumni of
schools/region, tie
into NYC, Boston
44. The Scale Up Challenges
Challenges
Talent
Leadership
Access to
Growth
Capital
Revenue
Peers/
Global
Mentors
Talent:
• managing talent,
growing teams, hiring
the right talent/hiring
professional talent,
building mgmt teams,
employer branding
• Keep local talent –
attract out-of-region
talent
• Expats?
• Mentoring and training
programs for teams
46. The Scale Up Challenges
Challenges
Talent
Leadership
Access to
Growth
Capital
Revenue
Peers/
Global
Mentors
Revenue:
• Introductions to
customers – in state and
eastern seaboard, in-
market biz dev concierge
• managing growth,
expanding market
penetration, going
international/driving
exports, channel strategy
• building a global brand,
selling at scale, lead gen,
marketing and market
analytics, access to
market research
• Hire top guns in both
sales and marketing
• International expansion -
channels
48. Helping each other
• Scaling companies need
– Talent
– Revenue
– Growth Capital
• Corporates can provide
– Revenue by being a customer or
channel to market
– Access to global markets
– Growth Capital through investment
– Talent – through joint ventures,
acquisition
• Corporates need
– Innovation
– Competitive products
– Startup Culture
• Scale-Ups can provide
– New products, ideas
– Ability to act quickly, respond to market
and competitive threats
– Through partnerships or acquisition,
talent who understands how to work
”lean”
49. Corporates & Scaling Companies Help Each Other
Nesta: SCALING TOGETHER OVERCOMING BARRIERS IN
CORPORATE-STARTUP COLLABORATION
50. The Scale Up Challenges
Challenges
Talent
Leadership
Access to
Growth
Capital
Revenue
Peers/
Global
Mentors
Growth Capital:
• how to fund growth,
options for financing,
Finance/Funding
coaching “beyond
Series A”
• VC intro’s/local visits,
road trips, debt
sourcing – SVB,
Comerica, etc
• Demo days, pitch days
• Linkages to other
ecosystems
53. • Started in 2011 as
Redwoods media – creating
marketing videos
• in 2012 pivoted & created
video tracking software
• Accepted into YC
54. • Peers/Global Mentors:
– Attended YC, Member of C100, Valley Board members
• Leadership
– CEO stepped away from Ops, hired a seasoned exec, brought in other
execs
• Growth Capital
– raised from Valley VCs, $60m total
• Talent
– Worked on employer brand – company of choice
– Opened office in Vancouver to tap West Coast mkt
– Hired senior HR leaders
• Revenue
– Priority on sales and marketing hires – brought in best in North
America
55. • Started in 2008 as Clearpath
Robotics focused on outdoor
robots for research
• in 2015 pivoted & created
autonomous warehouse
robots
• Stated they would not create
killer robots
56. • Peers/Global Mentors:
– Recruited Tesla co-founder as board member
– Seek Fortune 100 execs to mentor leadership team
• Leadership
– Growing from within but heavy investment in training
and learning
– Investor GE runs an executive secondment program
• Growth Capital
– raised from customers, $45m total
• Talent
– Attract international robotics experts drawn by challenges
of the tech
– Opened office in Valley to tap into specific skill sets
57. • Started in 2011 as Playfit
Health – exercise app
• in 2012 pivoted & created
wearable tech – first
product called MYO.
• Accepted into YC
58. • Peers/Global Mentors:
– Attended YC, board is comprised of top advisors from Intel, Amazon
• Leadership
– Hired global hardware execs
– Hired top Marketing execs
• Growth Capital
– raised from Valley+ VCs, $140m total
• Talent
– Worked on employer brand – huge media coverage
– Opened office in San Francisco for retail marketing talent
– Hired senior HR leaders
• Revenue
– Retail products, use channels and direct sales, have mostly North
American channel
61. Local Ecosystems must work Together,
Foster a sense of collaboration
You can’t be all things to all people
62. Size Matters
The total size of an ecosystem matters most in
predicting successful scale-ups
– Within the Startup Compass report, Silicon Valley (#1), Tel
Aviv-Haifa (#5), London-Cambridge (#6), Amsterdam-
Eindhoven (#19) and Denver-Boulder (unranked) are each
considered single ecosystems,
– Does CT align to NYC or Boston?
63. Global Competition
2015 Startup Compass report: predicts
40% of investment and exit value will
come from Silicon Valley, 40% will come
from the next three ecosystems, and 20%
from the rest of the world combined.
The regions that will be successful will
have the scale, density, depth and
connectivity to drive national outcomes
http://blog.startupcompass.co/the-2015-global-startup-ecosystem-ranking-is-live
2015 Compass Global
Ecosystem Ranking
65. Hooking up with Toronto
It’s more than a one-night stand!
15,000 tech companies
200,000 tech workers
5,200 tech startups
16 universities & colleges
150 languages spoken
2nd largest tech cluster in NA
66. Role of state and local government:
Job creation incentives, fast track
immigration processing, state government
as first customer, access to testing facilities,
access to researchers, academic
partnerships, int’l/nat’l landing spots
67. Challenge: Investments (2015)
Location # of Deals Invested
USD $b
Population
millions
$ Invested Per Capita
USD
Ontario 206 $0.7 13.6 $51.5
Canada 536 $1.8 35.2 $51.1
Israel 373 $3.6 8.0 $450.0
Berlin 205 $2.3 3.5 $657.1
Silicon
Valley
1,374 $27.7 4.0 $6,925.0
New York
State
514 $7.3 19.5 $374.4
New
England
503 $6.2 14.5 $427.6
LA 331 $5.1 4.0 $331.2
(Canadian data – CVCA, US Data – NVCA/PWC/Thomson Reuters, Israel Data – Geektime), Berlin Data: http://start-up-
initiative.ey.com/assets/knowledgebase/EY_Start-up_Barometer_2016.pdf
CT = $84
70. Measuring
success for
Scale-Up
Programs
Create more high quality scale-ups
• 15, $100m revenue companies in the
next 10 years
• $5B per year of Venture Capital deployed
in Ontario within 10 years
• 350,000 employed in Ontario tech sector
within 10 years
71. Lessons Learned: If you are a Scale Up
you probably don’t know what you don’t know –
beware of “founderitis”
Use your mentor network
build your network early – leverage your existing
investors & customers
build your employer brand to attract talent,
invest in your employees to keep them
Revenue is king – good sales people are golden,
good digital marketers are diamonds in the rough
Invest in leadership development and talent
72. Lessons Learned: For Ecosystem Leaders
Take the long view:
– build the ecosystem – local, regional, national and int’l
• Create density
– curate “collisions” – bring scale ups and big companies
together
– focus on building the talent pipeline now
– encourage funders to visit and invest
Create a Dashboard
– # of companies reaching revenue milestones of $25m, $50m, $75m and
$100m
– # of exits by acquisition that result in companies/ jobs remaining in state
– $$ value of exits, Investment $ and # of IPOs
– Talent growth
79. AGILE – Move fast, operate at scale
SMART – Leverage what they have,
change what they need to
CURIOUS – Seek to learn what they
don’t know
PARTNER – Look to engage
ecosystems different than they are
COOL – Talent magnet
NIMBLE HIPPO Org
Hinweis der Redaktion
Communitech is 20 years old this year. We’re known as the tech industry organization in Waterloo Region. We are, as our name implies, a community of tech.
Founded by 43 entrepreneurs in 1997, Communitech has grown into a MOVEMENT of more than 1,100 companies determined to scale their businesses and grow the economies of Waterloo Region and Canada.
Our MISSION is to help tech companies start, grow and succeed.
We help in three distinct ways:
Place – we provide a clubhouse for tech and the centre of gravity for entrepreneurship and innovation.
Ecosystem - we work on tech-friendly policy, brand-building and infrastructure to support more companies as they grow from startup to IPO
Programs – we provide hands-on help to solve problems and spot opportunities for companies and their teams
Back in 2009, the Tannery wasn’t the only empty industrial building in downtown Kitchener. Our entire downtown core was filled with reminders of how the manufacturing sector in Kitchener was struggling. Kitchener was once a place where people made things. Things like rubber tires, and ice skates, and gloves, and auto parts.
Kitchener was the “industrial” part of Waterloo Region. Its sister city – Waterloo – was known for different things. A big university; an insurance industry; and a technology sector.
Photo source: Kevo89 on Flickr http://www.flickr.com/photos/kevo89/3784668401/
But back in 2009 there wasn’t really a thriving tech sector either. There was one BIG success story called Research In Motion, and some modest mid-sized firms – perhaps 20 or 30 in all. There was very little startup activity. There weren’t any big bets happening in tech.
To raise the funding, we set big goals for this strategy. At least, they were big at the time. People thought we were crazy. They cautioned us to moderate our expectations.
Those big goals gave us something to shoot for. And we have seen results that far outstripped our initial expectations. The Communitech Hub has provided a platform for our work at Communitech, and has contributed significantly to the redevelopment of Kitchener’s downtown core.
We threw lots of events – connecting all kinds of different people
At the heart of our strategy was a place – we wanted to build a new kind of convergence centre where large and small companies would come together to create value. Companies had worked together before… and Communitech had been around for a decade. But none of this stuff had ever been done under one roof.
This was an experiment. We built a clubhouse for tech. A place where all elements of the virtual tech ecosystem could come together under one roof, in real time.
At the Hub, we provide great workspace for entrepreneurs; and we partner with the City and local real estate experts to help companies find suitable space elsewhere in downtown Kitchener once they outgrow our space.
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Globeandmail.com
In addition to running our own events, we encourage companies and community groups to use the space – we think of it as “theirs, not ours”.
We’ve become an innovation destination – more than 12,000 people visit the Hub each year. They’re interested not only in what we’re doing at the Hub, but also about the entire innovation ecosystem in our community. We now offer half-day and full-day ecosystem tours in partnership with other community leaders.
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Engaged 21 hubs
Partners across country
Our network keeps getting bigger and bigger – which makes the tech community stronger and stronger.
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Grew to 1166 members
Although we have many partners, TD stands alone as our flagship Corporate Innovation Partner
2013 stats
Kauffman – all businesses
Out of the 590,000 businesses started each yr in the US (includes all industries)
9.2% reach $1m in sales in 6 years
1.6% reach $5m in sales in 6 years
0.03% reach $100m in sales in 6 years
Of those companies that reach $50m in sales, on average it takes them 9 years to get there
The US creates 20 TECH companies per year that reach $100m in sales
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And it isn’t just about Waterloo Region. We’re stronger together… which is why we know that the Toronto-Waterloo Corridor is Canada’s best answer to creating the kind of economic critical mass that can rival Silicon Valley.
The Corridor has
15k tech companies
200k tech workers
5,200 startups
16 universities and colleges
150 languages spoken
2nd largest tech cluster
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Almost 12 billion Euro were poured into a total of 1433 investments in Europe in 2015. Of these, Germany gathered up 406. Hard facts comparing investments across European cities? Here’s the top seven:
Berlin…………2.145….(205)
London………1.773….(132)
Stockholm…….992……(25)
Paris…………….687……(94)
Hamburg………296……(28)
Munich…………206……(53)
Zurich…………..135……(24)
Investment amounts in million Euro (in brackets: number of financing rounds)
http://www.betahaus.com/berlin/2016/04/startup-investment-insights-from-2015/
